I had long considered such pets as ethereal soul trader and spectral tiger cub beyond my grasp. I do not have heaps of cash, either in game or irl, so they resided merely in fantasy and envy. And then came the duping. Lower and lower came the prices. Under 100k, under 60k, under 40k.... the ethics drove me quietly crazy. I do NOT want to support gold farming or duping or anything that violates ToS. I resisted. There was no way to say if a pet was a dupe, so I played it safe. And then a thought occured: how would I know if the pet wasn't a dupe? I wasn't about to pay 200k for a pet just because that would somehow make them legitimate.

I caved.

I'm sorry to all the responsible pet owners out there that really did have a legitimate pet! I truly hope I bought from you!

I wouldn't let it get to you... I traded for all my TCG pets. So I couldn't tell you if it was a dupe or not. But in the end all that matters is giving the little guys a good home and caring for 'em. I like to think that's a much better fate for them rather than being caged and passed around.

At this point I think there is nothing to do but accept it. Short of actually getting the physical card or at least the code from the card and redeeming it yourself you do have no way of knowing if it is a dupe or not. Even on the AH you can suspect that someone is probably selling dupes based on things like them having a number of different pets for sale, multiples of they ones they have for sale, selling them low, etc but you can't really know. They might be selling dupes directly or second hand or they might just be a active trader and have a good inventory. I do stop short of buying it from the anonymous bankers hawking it in trade chat who's typical MO seems to be having another character log in and deliver the pet once they've made the sale as that seems extra fishy and more likely to be directly connected to gold sellers/dupers/account hackers but that is as much out of practicality as it is principle. I'm on a relatively low pop RP server that is still only medium pop after a merge so I rarely see those types of sellers. I have bankers on other servers for buying and selling pets but I don't spend much time on them to see those types of sellers there.

Kpb321 wrote:At this point I think there is nothing to do but accept it. Short of actually getting the physical card or at least the code from the card and redeeming it yourself you do have no way of knowing if it is a dupe or not.

^- This

Blizzard could know and could stop it, but have opted not to sadly. While I like the idea that pets become less expensive, I also do not lime the idea that spammers, scammers and gold sellers profit from it.

Now, if I see the big trading cafd pets, mounts etc all being advertised by the same person, or same macro I will avoid that seller as they make me suspicious. They could be legit, I know some kids who buy cards, then sell them for what they would cost to buy if you were only looking for that card. Turns them a tidy profit, but I know them IRL, not from trade/ general spam.